


Hysteresis

by potterlockedintheshire



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drugs, Episode Related, Episode: s02e15 Revelations, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-03-13
Packaged: 2017-12-05 04:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potterlockedintheshire/pseuds/potterlockedintheshire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On his knees, digging through his bag; there’s got to be more, the bottles weren’t empty, he’d never be that careless.</p>
<p>“Reid!” Morgan’s behind him, then. Spencer ignores him even as Morgan comes up next to him, taking hold of his wrists as they search in the dark for the bottles.</p>
<p>“I can’t find them.” He pulls his hands out of Morgan’s grasp and sticks them back in the bag. “Where are they- I can’t find them!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hysteresis

**Author's Note:**

> Hysteresis  
> n. - A lagging or retardation of the effect, when the forces acting upon a body are changed, as if from velocity or internal friction; a temporary resistance to change from a condition previously induced, observed in magnetism, thermoelectricity, etc., on reversal of polarity.

The first time he shoots up on his own, he’s hardly aware of what he’s doing, just the _stop, no, please I need it to stop_ that jerks him out of sleep in the middle of the night, and he doesn’t realize it’s a nightmare until his hands are shaking, fumbling for the bedroom light switch, blinking too quickly and still seeing things that aren’t there. _This must be what insanity feels like_.  
  
He can feel the bottles in his hand before he realizes they’re there, removed from his bag so easily it scares him. And for once Spencer wants to stop thinking, stop noticing everything, but his heart rate’s still too fast, and sometimes he thinks he’ll never really get out of that barn. That should stop him, probably, from grabbing his belt from beside the bed and pulling it around his arm, but it doesn’t. His fingers fumble at first, caught in loops of _I can’t do this, I can’t, make it stop stop please,_ Raphael staring as he chokes on the ground, and what if Tobias hadn’t come back then?  
  
He gets the belt secured and grabs the vial of dilaudid, the needle, and why does this have to be the one thing that helps? Reid knows, scientifically, that he’s just making it worse, just drawing out the addiction, but science doesn’t do much when there are things in his mind he doesn’t want, shadows that won’t fade no matter the angle of the sun, and if he’s honest with himself, Spencer’s amazed it took this long for something to really break him.  
  
He pulls his knees to his chest before he lets the chemicals soak into his skin, curving his spine inwards as he feels his muscles tighten, then release.

~~~

He comes two days later (a Friday- Spencer had expected to be alone for the weekend).

“Morgan?”  
  
“Kid,” Morgan says by way of greeting. He walks inside and tosses his duffel bag onto the couch.  
  
“What’re you doing?”  
  
“Tryin’ to find the remote.” Spencer says nothing, and as he checks behind the stack of books on the coffee table, Morgan adds, “You looked pretty tired at work.”  
  
“Trouble sleeping.” They both know that.  
  
Spencer almost asks what Morgan’s doing (as if the agent would admit to checking up on him) but he doesn’t, partly because he already knows and partly because he doesn’t want to hear that Morgan’s not here for the reason he expects. Instead he just nods, offers Morgan use of the apartment while he’s there, and retreats to his room. Hell of a way to spend a Friday night.  
  
Just before midnight, he walks to the living area again, sees Morgan stretched out on the couch with some sports-car race playing softly on the screen.  
  
“You staying?” (Just to make sure.)  
  
“Go to sleep, kid.” Spencer hesitates and then returns to his room.

~~~

Except it’s not long before he’s awake, before he’s seeing things, before _the barn air is too hot and he feels like his lungs are being stabbed the more he tries to breathe. Charles backhands him again and he could deal with it fine if it weren’t for the way his throat’s closed up and he’s in the cemetery, then, his cemetery because he’ll be the body in the grave, and Raphael tells him to dig faster-_  
  
On his knees, digging through his bag; there’s got to be more, the bottles weren’t empty, he’d never be that careless.  
  
“Reid!” Morgan’s behind him, then. Spencer ignores him even as Morgan comes up next to him, taking hold of his wrists as they search in the dark for the bottles.  
  
“I can’t find them.” He pulls his hands out of Morgan’s grasp and sticks them back in the bag. “Where are they- I can’t find them!”  
  
“You gotta calm down.”  
  
“I can’t find them!” He can hear books, notepads, his glasses case as he pushes them around inside until he draws out a small glass bottle.  
  
“Reid-”  
  
It’s empty. Spencer smashes it then, grounding it against the bedroom floor with his palm. This time, when Morgan takes his wrists, he doesn’t let him get away.  
  
“Let me go!”  
  
“Not until you calm down.”  
  
He’s breathing too fast, too much oxygen and he can’t look at his friend kneeling beside him, holding his wrists a little too much like the handcuffs Hankel had him in.  
“I’m not. I’m not gonna calm down. It’s just going to happen again. Tonight and tomorrow night and the night after that. Let go of me!” Spencer realizes his right hand is bleeding, and his pulls away from Morgan lessen as he starts to register the feel of broken skin.  
  
“Reid, look at me.” Nothing. “C’mon. Reid, please.” Spencer turns his head a little- not quite enough to make eye contact. “This has gotta be real hard, alright? I get that. And nobody can blame you for not just bouncing back from it. But that doesn’t mean it won’t get better. Maybe it’ll take a while. Hell, I expect it will. But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen, okay?”  
  
Spencer stares at his bag, at the broken glass on the floor. When he finally speaks, Morgan has to strain to hear him. “Every night since I- since it happened, I’ve woken up thinking I was still in the barn, or in the graveyard, or dying or dead and-” He looks at Morgan then, pleading. “It’s the only thing that makes it stop.”  
  
“Drugs won't make it stop forever. You know that.”  
  
“Yeah. But it works for a while, and that’s- it's more than anything else.”  
  
Morgan sits with him in the darkness until his breathing returns to normal. When it does, Spencer gives his wrists an experimental tug, and Morgan releases him. “Why don’t you get that stuff off your hands?”  
  
Spencer nods and makes his way to the bathroom, watching the way the water takes the partially-dried blood and liquidizes it again, turning the water slightly pink before it runs down the drain. When he comes back, he sees Morgan carefully sweeping up the last of the broken glass and moving it to the small trashcan by the door.  
  
“Get in bed, kid.”  
  
“What about you?”  
  
“I’m staying.”  
  
Obediently, Spencer slips under the covers, keeping his eyes open at first to see Morgan leaning against the doorframe before allowing them to close. He starts to drift too quickly for his liking, and he almost stops it, almost wakes himself up before he remembers that if anything happens, Morgan will wake him.  
  
“Morgan? Thanks.” Spencer’s not sure if he actually says it before he slips into unconsciousness or if it’s just part of a dream, but from the quiet laugh he hears and the words he can’t quite make out before he’s definitely asleep, he thinks there’s a chance he managed to say it aloud.

~~~

A week later, he’s shaking, clutching his arm where Tobias had put the needle the first time _–stop, please, please I don’t want this, don't make me-_ and wakes to an empty room, breath catching in his throat.  
  
Spencer gets up and pulls the second bottle from his bag.


End file.
